A push beyond gold: with depressed gold prices, Alaska's other minerals are taking the forefront.

• Author: Jones, Patricia

With depressed gold prices, Alaska's other minerals are taking the forefront.

Gold miners opened up much of Alaska's remote lands 100 years ago during the turn of the century rush. Recent discoveries like Fort Knox and Pogo - large, underground gold deposits - have also created national news and sparked the interest of today's computer-toting, helicopter-chartering, high-tech prospectors.

Yet a quick glance at the state's annual Mineral Industry Report shows that when comparing yearly values of production, gold takes a back seat to zinc, a base metal mainly used in creation of galvanized steel.

The first clue is that gold production is measured by ounces in the state report, whereas zinc is recorded in tons.

In 1998, nearly 600,000 ounces of gold were produced, valued at $172 million, using the average market price of $293.88 per ounce for the year. Nearly 550,000 tons of zinc were produced in Alaska in 1998, worth an estimated $505 million, more than half of all mining production recorded in the state.

Silver lagged behind gold as the third most-valuable mineral produced in Alaska, with more than $82 million worth mined in 1998. Lead provided nearly $50 million worth of mined material in 1998, while copper trailed the metals category of Alaska's mining industry, with nearly $3 million in production.

Including all metals, industrial minerals such as jade, soapstone, sand and gravel (and plain old rock and coal and peat), Alaska's miners in 1998 dug up $903 million worth of valuable materials from the rich ground here in the far north.

Gold Still Sweetest

Yet most mining and exploration companies that request information from the state's minerals development specialist, Dick Swainbank, are primarily interested in gold-bearing properties.

"Polymetallics are high on the list to push," he said. "But if a company is only interested in looking for gold, it's kind of like flogging a dead horse to try to convince them to look for other things."

Steve Borell, executive director of the Alaska Miners Association, thinks that trend is slowly changing. "At these times of very, very low gold prices, we're likely to see some companies looking more at polymetallics," he said. "Those that have a couple of different metals being produced out of the rock have an opportunity that some of the cash flow can come from something that isn't very depressed in price."

Swainbank estimates that $10 million to $15 million was spent last year by prospectors looking for...